


New Constellations

by zellymaybloom



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alien AU, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Buzzfeed Creation Challenge, First Meeting, Gen, Oneshot, can be read either way, mentions of minor character death, oh btw this wasn't written with any romantic intention in mind, only rated T for cursing, they dont even have names so it's chill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 12:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14112630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zellymaybloom/pseuds/zellymaybloom
Summary: Someone makes a crash landing.





	New Constellations

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Tumblr Buzzfeed Creators Challenge](https://thebuzzfeedchallenge.tumblr.com/)!! It's a little monthly challenge where you're given a prompt with the months theme, and mine was first time meeting! Hella rad y'all... Go sign up for next months.............
> 
> Anyway. Enjoy! Lemme know about any typos please and thank.

The emergency alert had stopped. Five years of its siren and flashing red lights came to end. That should’ve been a relief, but the fact that the battery had finally worn out was upsetting. The only power he had now was the lights and fridge, being powered by the light of the distant star. Aside from that, no engine, no heating, and no communications. His craft, the Agad-toh, was in no working condition.

And they told him that space diplomacy was a safe career.

With no other crew member alive, he supposed that all he could do now was wait until he crashed. His engineer has been dead since the emergency alert started. When they hit the asteroid that would end their mission, she was the one who calmed them down while she left to assess the damage. Space debris the size of a pebble had cut her tether, and her jetpack couldn’t catch up. Her death hit them the worst. She was like a mother. A month later, the navigator went mad and let himself out of the airlock. His death... He just gave up on them. No tears were shed for him. And finally, the pilot died just two years ago of old age. She was a respected woman back home, and it was a tragedy.

That left him, the only crew member alive. The diplomat. What use was that?

He floated to back of the ship. There was the stainless steel chest, once upon a time polished to the most brilliant shine. It now collected dust; its handles littered with his prints. All of their belongings lay in this chest. He took a second to wipe off the dust with his sleeve before pressing his thumb against the lock. It opened with a click. A picture of his family, a journal, and some books on Earth’s most common languages. Above it all, was an envelope. He picked it up. Inside, was a packet. Each piece of paper said the same thing. A single message written in a thousand languages. This was the crew’s purpose. Their reason for leaving home those years ago. Heroes, they said. That’s what they’d be upon return. He scoffed. _Return_. As if any of them would return at all.

He remembered the advice they’d been given the day of launch. Don’t do this. Routinely check that. And it’s _really_ important to do this, _unless_ the situation calls for it, otherwise it’s okay. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he couldn’t recall any of it.

Why would he? After all, he was just supposed to hand them the letter and talk about it. Tell them about their existence and see if they would be interested in an intergalactic alliance. He was a diplomat first and an astronaut second. And before being rocketed into space, he was a lawyer first and a _person_ second. So, terms and conditions, as well as bending them unnoticeably in his favor, was kind of his thing.

With the diplomatic envelope still in hand, he pushed off the wall and towards the viewing port. Before the asteroid, he would look out and see beauty. He had always loved looking out there. Possibility, he would think.

There was so much nothing in the unknown. People loved to focus on that. It was a morbid fascination on inevitability and death. Nothing, nothing, nothing. _What about the something?_ Tiny things, so little they couldn’t be seen with the eye alone. They all had a dream: to be noticed and seen. Sharing this dream, they merged. They became one, noticeable object with one, now exponentially bigger dream. And the cycle repeated, becoming bigger and bigger. Over time, the dream would change and they all had personalities. It gave them stars, and planets, and even him. Sometimes, they never changed their dream. They still wanted to be bigger. Those were black holes.

He shook his head, the thoughts rearranging. That was before. That was the stars of home. These were the stars of his end. Now, what he saw was no longer possibility. It was inevitability. Specifically, that he was going to crash. The great blackness of it all was being tainted. Tainted by a great blue orb, growing in size by the second. He would break their into their atmosphere soon. It was only a matter of time. The planet was supposed to be a pit stop, but instead it was the final destination.

He sighed. Running a hand through his brown hair, he strapped himself into his old seat. Next to the engineer, behind the pilot. Diagonal to the navigator. He hadn’t sat here since since the last of his crew left him. He would remember them all in his last moments, with strength. With his long legs, his knees nearly brushed the back of the pilot’s seat in front of him. Just like he remembered.

Then, there was a loud bang. The craft started to shake. He had entered their atmosphere. Whatever poor creature found his craft, they wouldn’t know what hit’em. _Earth_ wouldn’t know what hit it.

He closed his eyes.

He wanted to feel what was happening around him. He was being pressed up against his seat, like the entire planet itself was on top of him. It was blazing hot too. The heat penetrated his suit, like it came from inside him instead of around him. The shaking continued; there was a constant banging on the exterior of the craft. The sound was tremendous. He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but he sensed that he was close to the ground.

With a grimace, he opened his eyes. He wanted to know what life this planet held. What life could’ve been so impressive that it was worth more than his?

Shane saw a human face before his world turned black.

~

“This has gotta be a joke, right?! There’s no way this is happening, on _my_ vacation, on my _fucking tent_ . _No! What the fuck._ I don’t believe this, this doesn’t make sense.”

There was a voice. One that he didn’t recognize. He figured if he died, the first thing he’d hear was his mom or dad or someone he knew coming to greet him. And if this was a god of any religion he didn’t think they’d be on vacation, let alone camping. There wasn’t even a bright light behind his eyes. No, it was night time in the land of the _living_.

Shane tried to wiggle his fingers and toes. Those were fine. He didn’t want to be out of commision if this Earthling was hostile or give off a bad impression. From there, he moved onto his neck. Functioning, but sore. Left leg, nice. Right leg, a’okay. Left arm, fine, right arm-

“ _Ah-!_ ”

“What the fuck, _what the actual fuck,_ what the fuuuuuck was that oh my god-”

_Oh great, I scared the human._

Using his good arm to push himself up from his lying down state, he tried to turn and face the human’s voice. If the plaques on their space probes, _Pioneer 10_ and _Pioneer 11_ , held any truth, they had remarkably similar anatomy. Though, his people were certainly more adaptable: they could breath in a few more gases than _they_ could, slightly different skeletal structures, a little on the taller side. There was something with their eyes that were different? He didn’t remember the lesson from his studies before the mission. He knew that they certainly couldn’t change the pigment of their eyes at will. There was something else about their eyes seeing… Upside down? And their brains just flipped the image? Something inefficient along those lines. He didn’t remember much.

What he _did_ remember though, was all of his language lessons. He was taught the fifty most common, assuming he’d land in one of the larger regions, and they stressed a few of them more than others. This sounded like one of them: English. “Fuck” was a “swear word”. Whatever that meant. Swearing meant making an oath, and he didn’t see what the human was making an oath to. Whatever. That wasn’t important right now. He needed to communicate. If there was anything humans feared, it was ignorance.

Now sitting upright, he took a moment trying to recall his English introduction. After a second, he was able to recite his practiced lines, “Hi, I’m sorry for the interruption, but my name is Shane Alexander Madej. Don’t hurt me. I’m on a diplomatic meeting for a planet very far away. I don’t know its name on Earth. Who are you?”

The human stood in disbelief. He stared, mouth hung open. Shane counted seven seconds before the response, “ _Oh my god are you an alien?_ ”

“Yes, who are you?”

“No… No no no that’s bullshit I don’t believe you!”

“Why did you ask if you wouldn’t believe my answer?”

The Earthling started to laugh. There were tears in his eyes. His breathing grew labored as he gasped out, “Because you’re a _fucking alien!_ You can’t just be here! Shit, I don’t know if _I_ can be here!”

“Okay, we can leave as soon as you tell me who you are.”

Shane watched him pace back and forth. He could hear him whispering things to himself. The man’s hands flew from his hair to his pockets to an occasional gesticulation. He pulled something out of his back pocket and stared, before decidedly putting it back.

He would be of no help in this state. Shane tried to move the introduction along, “I guess your name is unimportant, or you don’t have one. Why don’t you want to be here? Is it safe?”

The man stopped. He stared. There was conflict in his eyes. Indecision. He said, “No. It’s not safe here.” And then he was running in Shane’s direction. Shane scrambled back into the broken hull of the Agad-To, but it was no use. He braced for the hit. A rough grip found his good arm and pulled him up, and he reeled his leg back for a kick. But he stumbled forward. The man was pulling him somewhere. He was sprinting. They were sprinting. They went around the crash site. The man picked up a small bag. They ran faster, through the woods. Away from his ship, though he knew even without a glance that it would be unsalvageable.

“Um, excuse me!” he shouted over the rushing wind and crinkle of brush, “Where are you taking me?! What’s not safe?!”

“Shut up and _run!_ I’ll explain in the car!”

Shane wasn’t happy about that, but he obliged. If there was such a vicious danger here, one enough to strike fear into this human, he would listen. He knew that arguing wouldn’t do him well.

In the rush, he tried to observe the runner in front of him. The moonlight provided little help. Still, he could tell at least this: He was short, at least for his home planet’s standards. Dark hair. Well built. Particularly strong arms. He remembered he had dark eyes and stubble from the few seconds he was facing him. That was all he could see. His features were blurry.

Shane tried not to dwell on this. He had to keep pace. Not too much of challenge with his height, but the little guy could certainly run. Though, anyone could become a runner when running on fear. No matter. They were going to the man’s car. There was little knowledge of what a car exactly was in his lessons, but he was told it was for transportation. Likely to get away from whatever danger there was.

He could hear their sirens. He could _see_ beams of light, cutting through the brush. They couldn’t _all_ be what Shane loosely defined as “officials”. No, these were people like Ryan. People who wanted to enjoy a vacation or holiday. If these people, these _uncontrollable_ , _social_ people disclosed his existence, it would be futile.

Perhaps it was the anxiety, or maybe it was true, but the run to the car felt like half an hour. At some point it grew hard to match the speed set by his new guide. He could only press forward. The only thing he had behind him was woods, a wreckage, and far too many searching eyes.

But, they had finally reached the car in a clearing, surrounded by others, each slightly different. Cars were small, disappointing little rectangular things really, but as far as he had been told, Earth hadn’t totally mastered the art of flight. Shane had no time to judge. He was ushered into a seat and told to “buckle up”. Observing, he had figured out what to do.

“Okay, we’re in your car. Who are you and what was the issue?”

“My name is Ryan Bergara, and the issue here is that _you’re a fucking alien_.”

“Now that’s just a little offensive isn’t it?”

This, _Ryan Bergara_ character was going ever so slightly hysterical. As his car was starting to… Turn on, Shane guessed, Ryan shouted, “No! No it’s not! Aliens aren’t normal, and I don’t know why I’m trying to help you escape right now, damnit! Like, why do you look like a person?! That’s weird! Maybe it’s because you look exactly like a human and that scares me! Maybe it’s because you look exactly like a human and I’d feel bad if the government took you and you just got probed in the ass and died! I don’t know what I’m doing right now! All I know is that if the Roswell incident was true, which I dunno’ man, it might have been! Well, then the government is going to want you!”

It was all rambling as far as he could tell, but Shane listened with rapt attention. If he could squeeze any bit of information out of him, it would be worth it. The last part seemed to be interesting. The government wasn’t exactly a fan of aliens. Not the best thing considering that he was supposed to communicate with an Earthling government official for his mission. Ryan said something about getting probed in the ass? And while Shane was all for taking Ryan’s advice, as his intentions did seem to be in his favor, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be giving the most reliable information about the government. Ryan didn’t look like the politician type.

Shane let the silence sit undisturbed, except for the sounds of the car’s humming. He wouldn’t try and argue now. It’s what he’s been doing. Listening. Learning. But really, he didn’t know what parts of Ryan’s story to believe. He looked out the window, drumming his fingers on the arm rest. What power did their government have? He huffed. “Want me how?”

“Ya’ know… Experiments and shit,” Ryan shrugged. His madness had slowly slipped away in the quiet. As he regained his senses, Shane could judge his intellect and personality properly. Shane watched his eyes drift away from the road in front of them as Ryan gave him a look. “They wanna’ know what foreign life is like.”

_If that’s all they really want to know_ , Shane thought, _I could easily answer that right now_. He remarked, “Hm. Incredibly similar to yours in case you were wondering! Mostly the same parts! Our skeletal structures have developed in eerily similar ways, a beautiful intergalactic convergent evolution that proves something-”

“I’ve noticed, Shane. I can see that you look a lot like us. Whatever training you’ve had before coming to Earth made you sound _amazingly_ like us too. Your first introduction sentence back at the crash was sorta stiff and formal, but right now you’re _fluent_ . If I didn’t see your body fall out of that ship from the fucking sky, I wouldn’t have any idea of what you are. _That’s_ the real issue.

“Because we’re so similar, in both looks and voice, they’re going to want to nitpick every last bone and blood vessel in your body just to see what _isn’t_ the same. And you technically don’t have rights here. You’re no citizen. There’s no law saying that they aren’t allowed to kill you at the first divergence they see. And you know what Shane? I’ve known you for less than an hour, but I know that I can’t let that happen to you. Another clearly intelligent and sentient life form like yourself doesn’t deserve to be treated like an interesting specimen that someone found laying in the woods, which honestly, you probably would’ve been if you didn’t land in my campsite.”

The air was thick. There was such a certainty in Ryan’s voice, and the logic made sense. So, yeah… Ryan probably wasn’t a government official or world renowned scientist. But, he was an intelligent man. He’d convinced Shane that exposing his identity wouldn’t work out. Finishing his diplomatic mission wasn’t an option now. And he already knew that going home wasn’t happening either. Still, that begged the question:

“Well then Ryan, what do you propose I do?”

As he asked this, the car pulled up to a booth on the side of the road. Coming off its side was a bar blocking the path. Ryan gave him a hand motion which he could assume meant, “hold on,” as he fished for something in the car. He pulled out a purple slip of paper and handed it to another human sitting in the booth. There were some buttons pushed on a small device. Ryan was told a number. Then, he went through his bag and pulled out some smaller, green pieces of paper and small metal disks.

With a polite wave and “Good night!”, Ryan continued on the road. His fingers drummed on the wheel.

Shane let his earlier question go unanswered and observed the stars. He remembered seeing possibility. Could he see that now? He looked at them earlier, in the Agad-Toh. They weren’t like the one’s back home. He didn’t know what he was supposed to suspect or what he was looking for. They’ve _been_ changing since they left their star system. But he knew now that the change stopped here. Whatever constellations they had on Earth, would be the only ones he would see until the day he died... He cursed his lack of attention in the star mapping classes back home. Shane understood now why people liked to focus on the emptiness.

“I don’t… I don’t know what to do with you,” came Ryan’s voice to his left. There was his answer.

Shane looked at his hands in his lap, “I don’t know what to do, period.”

Without looking away from the road, Ryan asked, “How willing are you to do work?”

“I guess that’s all I can really do, isn’t it? Make a new life?”

“Yep…” then he coughed. “Is this the part where I ask you about all your weird alien culture? Or you ask me about mine so you can blend in or whatever?”

He was right. Shane knew he’d have to get used to the new surroundings and slang and _everything_ if he wanted to make a life here. That was a… realization. A shock. He’s getting time to think now. It was coming in bits and pieces. He learned language, not culture. This wasn’t a round trip anymore. He knew he wouldn’t come back home. That realization had come earlier. Building a home though, forcing himself to call this planet home… He finally processed that. Little things like manners, sports teams... _endless_ cities that people around would be able to list off effortlessly. He still didn’t know where in the world he was. He didn’t know where he was supposed to start.

“Ryan?”

“What?”

“I don’t know _anything_ about Earth.”

“Yeah. No shit.”

Shane grew serious. He twisted in his seat to address Ryan directly. He had to get across his sheer distress for the situation. His voice lowered, “Ryan, there’s the problem. I have no idea what that meant. ‘ _No shit_ .’ When it comes to English, I wasn’t taught any of your expressions. I was taught your words’ diction. I don’t know any of their connotations. I can talk like a English-speaking human, fine. But I don’t know how I’m going to live like one. Your brands, your celebrities, your status as a nation. What does any of that mean? I didn’t crash on this planet to become a citizen! I was supposed to be a representative. I was _supposed_ to be a foreigner. You have to help me here. Please.”

And he waited for a response.

“God, I can’t believe I’m even suggesting this… Well, maybe I do but,” Ryan ran a hand through his hair and sighed, “do you want to move in with me?”

“ _Yes_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Welp! I hope you enjoyed this little diddle do. I got a [tumblr](https://zellymaybloom.tumblr.com/) btw wowie wow.


End file.
